PurpleEpiphany

You're right, short doesn't mean you have to eat little amounts, there are many more factors. And for the record, I don't eat 1200 calories either. That's my entire point, though...there's more to it than just a number. For some people the 'magic' number they probably shouldn't go below to adequately fuel their bodies may…

Good point. I guess it just bugs me when people throw it out there as the answer to everything.

See, I would consider that a case of needing to fuel your workouts by eating more. Your body was telling you it didn't have enough fuel, and you responded accordingly. That works for some people, and that's great. It just isn't ALWAYS the answer, that's the only point I'm trying to make here. The really confusing bit to me…

That's an extreme oversimplification of what it says. The article states that your metabolism will slow down slightly if you go below a certain percentage of your required calories. I'm not saying that anyone should stop eating. What bothers me is when someone posts something like "I'm eating 1400 calories per day and not…

You have to get down to about 25% of your needed calories to hit starvation mode (where your metabolism slows down), at least in most cases. That's what I'm saying, is that they are incorrect in how they're applying it. It takes far fewer calories to reach starvation mode than most people assume. The article I linked has…

I work a desk job and find it difficult to get up and move around, especially since it's a call center and our breaks and such are regulated. I saw a few comments on being too tired to excercise, and that used to be me. The thing is that exercising is what gives you the energy, or at least it's a huge help. When I started,…

Pistachios and cashews are my snack of choice at work. You have to be REALLY careful with portions (cashews especially add up fast) but they give you lots of energy :)

To those people who say it's no different than talking to a passenger, sorry but every study done so far suggests otherwise. http://mentalhealth.about.com/library/sci/0701/blcellphone701.htm "...1997 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine by Donald Redemeier of the University of Toronto and Robert…

You don't need to force yourself to meet any minimum calorie requirement. People on MFP like to tout "starvation mode", but most of them don't understand what it actually means. That said...you need to be very careful that you're fueling your workouts (ie. don't be that person who passes out the stationary bike because…

Too many people think they're special snowflakes, and the exception to the rule in everything, including this. The bottom line is that our brains do not multi task, they switch back and forth from one task to the other so rapidly that we think we're doing two things at once. Texting automatically takes priority as language…

I think what makes people identify "low carb" as a fad diet is the name. Really, you're not adopting a "low carb" diet, you're dropping a "high carb" diet. It isn't that carbs are evil, it's that many of the foods people eat every day have been over processed to add high amounts of carbs, especially low fat options. This…

Hm, I never noticed that. I'll have to keep an eye out for whether it's on exercise too.

The biggest thing for me is to make sure that the changes you're making are sustainable. If it isn't something you can stick with, you need to try something else, otherwise you're dooming yourself to failure. Don't think of this as a short-term journey with a specific goal or end, think of it as changing the way you live.…

I'm 5'1" (maybe 5'1.5" if I think really tall thoughts), currently experiencing a bit of a plateau at 191 after losing about 13 lbs in the last two months. I need to get back to being very strict about logging my calories. I've stuck with going to the gym, so even though I'm not seeing as much weight loss I'm still seeing…

The things your family says tend to stick in your head, as do the things you hear at school when you're young. I remember being very young, maybe first or second or something like that, and there was a girl on the buss who used to call me 'piggy' all the time. It's absurd, looking back, because not only was I so young, but…

http://yourdoctorsorders.com/2011/10/breakfast-myths/

I'm 5'1" and currently 190 lbs. My highest (a few years ago) was 216. Some lifestyle changes (cutting out soda, etc) helped at that point, but I hit a plateau at 205 and was there for a while. I've been bellydancing the last two years which has helped, but while I was in better shape I was still more overweight than I…

Glad I'm not the only one. And yeah, I definitely agree that those milestones can be great motivators. I feel like I'm finally at the point where I'm looking for reasons to keep it up, keep exercising, keep eating well, whereas before I was always looking for reasons to cheat, or excuses for cheating.

My only real advice, which you seem to be following already, would be don't think about things in the short term. There are a lot of ways to lose weight, some of them faster than others. Many of these (crash diets, etc) usually result in the person gaining all the weight back, if not more. Personally I've been trying to…

In South Beach he talks a lot about that specific 'body type' with a lot of belly fat but not much fat elsewhere, and how his theory is that it's more dangerous to your health than being generally overweight. The thing is, as people above said, if you lose weight, you will eventually lose belly fat. There's no way to prove…

The only people I've unfriended on MFP so far have been people who: 1. Had extremely unrealistic or unhealthy goals or habits (massively restricted calories, diets that seem to lack any solid food but are not part of a doctor-supervised plan, etc). 2. (This one is a pet peeve of mine.) Grossly overestimate the number of…

That does help, thanks :) I have to be careful with the resistance on the elliptical, though, or I start to feel it in my knee. Still, I am trying to concentrate on being more upright and making sure my foot goes all the way flat. I tend to go up on the balls of my feet when I stop paying attention (dratted bellydancer…

As a belly dancer I do belly rolls in my chair all the time. These can be tough to master at first, but I also break it down to contracting and relaxing the upper abs or the lower abs separately, which are the foundations to learning belly rolls themselves. The great thing about doing abdominal contractions is you can do…

http://fattyfightsback.blogspot.com/2009/03/mtyhbusters-starvation-mode.html

Most of the time with chocolate, it isn't the cacao that's bad for you so much as all the things they add to it. (Gluten, etc.) If you like dark chocolate, there are lots of good varieties out there that cut down on the additives. I tend to splurge on Theo (a local Seattle company with organic, fair trade cacao). Their…

I find sarcasm works best for me in such situations...although it can backfire, lol. For example, in the ice cream bar situation, I would have been tempted to say "Oh it's fine, I just won't eat anything for the next two days, so it'll even out." I agree on the terminology, though. The technical meaning of 'diet' is pretty…

Well loosening the laces didn't help much. Toes took a bit longer to go tingly but they still did, and my knee was hurting...then again, I think I need better socks for more cushion. I may also try those bungee laces :) I still think I need new shoes, but that's just because I don't think mine were intended for the amount…

Definitely :) I also think that it's often used as a tool to keep people from crash dieting, which is never good.

You guys are probably right. I'm just enough of a dork for that to be the problem.

You're not going to. People on this site talk about "starvation mode" left and right, but most of them don't understand what it is and how it actually works. Do you need to make sure you have adequate energy from calories to work out? Yes. Do you need to make sure to be getting good nutrition no matter how many calories…